Separate lives of Koreans and foreigners

By Kim Ji-myung

Where do foreign residents in Seoul hang out at 3 a.m.? And what about Koreans? A survey on the location and movement of more than 10 million people, including 270,000 foreigners, was conducted for one week in February and March of 2017, designed to find out their living and moving patterns

The Project “Seoul: Rhythm of the City,” found particular concentrations of long-term resident foreigners around a few locations at the small hours of the day. These included Daerim and Konkuk University stations where Chinese residences are concentrated; Sinchon and Kyunghee University where many students from abroad live; and the Dongdaemun area which is where most Central Asian residents have apartments.

On the other hand, Koreans in their 60s were found evenly scattered around, while those in their 20s densely populated college areas and one-room rental areas such as Sinchon and Silim-dong.

In other words, at this pre-dawn hour, people stayed mostly at their places of residence. This seemingly obvious result, however, had many unexpected findings when the movement of foreign residents was compared to that of Koreans by the hour and region.

In the “Contents impact, impact contents ― Beautiful News” project, the JoongAng Ilbo and the Korea Culture and Content Agency (KOCCA) supported survey teams of 40 data analysts and artists. It was an innovative trial to interpret data and present news from a fresh perspective.

One of the teams, Team A, analyzed data of Korean citizens and foreign residents in age groups of 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and older, and a separate group of long-term foreign residents (over three months), using data supplied by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and Korea Telecom.

The biggest population concentration of Koreans over 60, inconsistent with their registered domicile, appeared to be big general hospitals, nursing homes and major wholesale markets. This indicates that many elderly people are involved in work at the markets.

Those in their 20s showed the highest rate of moving in and out of Seoul. They flowed into Seoul between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. on weekdays, and then left Seoul after 10:00 pm in general.

Elderly migration patterns in Seoul showed a similar pattern but a slightly lower rate from those in their 20s. The time they went to Seoul was usually 9 to 10 a.m. on weekdays, two hours later than the young adults.

Foreigners showed the opposite pattern. They moved out of Seoul during the morning hours and flowed back in after work. In other words, although they lived in the capital, their workplaces were outside the Seoul metropolitan area.

What is the pattern in people's movement inside Seoul? Elderly people tend to move around more on non-working days such as weekends and holidays.

Unusually, both young and old showed the highest rate of movement (about 14 percent) between 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. There could be various reasons for this such as late home coming, picking up children, and taking a walk. But it obviously reflected the tiresome daily life of Seoul residents who cannot go to bed early.

In the case of foreigners, the rate of movement inside Seoul was the lowest among the three population groups. Except for commuting to and from workplaces which are scattered throughout the greater metropolitan area, they seem to remain within their residential areas.

Where do the young, elderly and foreigners living in the same city meet and mix with each other? Team A analyzed the data with the assumption that the degree of blending among different groups would be higher where the foreigner population density was high and where mobility was relatively low. However, the result showed that the three groups coexist only during sleeping hours.

The team presents visualized population density and flow by time and age and rendered the results in videos by moving the process of data processing onto the digital canvas.

The sentiment of isolated existence of the different groups of residents of Seoul is presented in the video “Lost” which can be played at https://youtu.be/zWfEvybn7Rg.

The writer (Heritagekorea21@gmail.com) is the chairwoman of the Korea Heritage Education Institute (K*Heritage).